


The Brightness Within

by Tempest_Rulz



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Modern Girl in Middle Earth, Other, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 23:15:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17517683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tempest_Rulz/pseuds/Tempest_Rulz
Summary: The Wizard of Oz was supposed to be just a story. No one could fall into another world, could they? When Sibby Stanton finds herself in a strange new world full of medieval technology, magical rings and mythical creatures that defy the laws of physics, she's convinced she's fallen through a quantum tunnel, and there's one object that maybe, just maybe, could get her home.





	The Brightness Within

**Author's Note:**

> This is my experiment in trying to create a GIME with superpowers who, nevertheless, isn't annoying to read. This is going to be extremely AU, as in everything will change, including how the story ends. If you're looking for something that stays true to Tolkien's philosophies, this probably isn't it. If you're into something a little bit different and examines his philosophies from an alternative point of view, this is my attempt at doing so.
> 
> Sibby's home world doesn't have LotR, but it does have Game of Thrones.
> 
> Disclaimer: I only own the Stantons and Jamie Larson. Everything else belongs to Professor Tolkien.

When William Stanton received the call at his office, he had no idea what he was in for. An hour and a half later, he was at Queens Hospital, where his wife, Marie Clyde-Stanton, was waiting for him just as he'd asked. Her eyes were red from crying and she clutched a crumpled tissue as if that would keep the force of the bad news at bay. "I'm so sorry," she whispered as she collapsed into his arms. "The doctors say she won't make it." William was a man who had grown up believing that emotions were weakness, but at those words, he almost crumpled. Nessa couldn't die. She was his baby sister. Yes, she was a mess and she lived life on the edge, but he'd always admired her fearlessness and how she defied their father at every turn, despite getting her inheritance cut off. But perhaps that was what had killed her. She'd finally encountered something she couldn't overcome with sheer force of will.

Nessa lay in a darkened room. Machines beeped in a sterile environment. She wore an oxygen mask over her face. If he hadn't already known who she was, he wouldn't have recognised her. Her face was bruised and swollen. There was a gash above her brow that went through her eyebrow and all the way into the bridge of her nose. Her head was wrapped in bandages. The rest of her lay under the crisp white hospital sheets. She was still breathing, but just. The heartrate monitor beeped slowly. "Ness?" he whispered. She didn't respond. He took her cold, lifeless hand. Her nails, he noted, were bitten and covered in flecks of old black nail polish. "Ness, it's me. It's Will. I hope – I  _know_ you can hear me. You don't have to worry about your baby. Marie and me, we'll take care of her. She'll be safe with us, I promise."

He pressed a kiss to her dry papery skin. She didn't respond, but he felt that she had understood every word.

Outside, Marie was speaking with a doctor who held a file out to her. When the doctor saw him, she turned to him. "Mr Stanton, I was just speaking with Mrs Stanton about the baby. In the case of her mother's death, you are her next of kin, unless you know who her father is?"

William shook his head. "Nessa didn't mention anyone. I didn't even know she was…" He sucked in a shuddering breath.

"I understand," said the doctor.

"The baby, how is it?"

The doctor smiled. "It's a little girl. She seems perfectly normal and healthy, although we're monitoring her. She is a month early. Do you want to see her?"

It was Marie who held her first, that tiny thing with a wrinkled face wearing a pink knitted cap over her tuft of dark hair. Two months after her mother's car accident and her emergency C-section birth, and five weeks after the doctors declared Nessa Stanton to be in a permanently vegetative state and the family decided to disconnect her life support, William and Marie took Sybille home.

* * *

**16 years later…**

Shit, shit, shit. Her dad was going to be so mad. Well, Mom was the one who was going to yell at her, but Dad would have this disappointed look on his face and that was ten times worse. Sibby jiggled her knee as she sat on the sticky linoleum seat in the principal's office. Across from her were the three boys from the football team, minus the quarterback who had to be taken to hospital. It really wasn't her fault that he had a broken wrist and a broken collarbone, and a possible concussion. Who told him that Sarah was prey and that he could do whatever he wanted with her? Sibby was only defending her little sister. Who, by the way, seemed to show absolutely  _no_ appreciation for everything that she'd done.

The boys kept sneaking glances at her, and then looked away when she glanced back.

At sixteen, Sibby was in twelfth grade and was as tall as most of the boys. Her unruly dark hair had been scraped back into a tight ponytail full of tangles, and a smattering of freckles danced across the bridge of her nose. She wasn't pretty the way perfect, golden Sarah was, with her perfectly tousled voluminous blonde hair that looked like she'd just had a blow dry or gone to the beach, her sparkling blue eyes framed by eyelashes that didn't need mascara, her lithe hourglass figure and a rose petal mouth, but she wasn't absolutely hideous.

Finally, her parents stepped out of the principal's office. She felt a stab of guilt. Her dad was in the middle of election campaigning and he couldn't really pull himself away from work, but here he was, dealing with her. Again.

"Thank you for your time, Senator Stanton, Dr. Clyde-Stanton," said Principal Harriman. He shook hands with both of them. "I appreciate you coming in to speak with me. I hope that you will consider what I have said." What? What did he say? Sibby was dying to know.

"Come on, Sybille," said Marie. "Let's get you home." Sybille? Uh oh. Mom was mad. Which she'd expected. She followed her parents to the car, where Sarah was already waiting with their driver Cesar.

Cesar gave her a wink and said nothing when they got into the car for an Awkward Drive Home.

Her older brother Ben had come home for the weekend. During the week, he stayed at his dorm at NYU, where he was pursuing a degree in sports medicine. What her parents didn't know was that he spent more time partying than he did studying. Sibby wasn't going to blab on him, even if she sometimes did help him do research for his papers.

The first thing they heard was Ben rummaging in the fridge. "Hey," he said when he saw them. His dark hair curled over his ears and one tendril dropped over his brow. It was getting a little too long again but he never cut it unless their mother dragged him to the hairdressers. In fact, Sibby thought he was just about due for such an appointment. "What's for dinner? There's nothing in here."

"We can order pizza!" cried Sibby happily, everything at school forgotten. "I want spicy potato wedges!"

Ben then noticed the expressions on his parents' face, not to mention Sarah's scowl. "Uh oh," he said. "Did I do something? Because I can explain."

"Sibby broke Darren Hertz's wrist and collarbone and now he won't be able to play for the whole season!" cried Sarah.

"Hey, he was pressing himself up against you with his friends all around. What was I supposed to think?"

William's brows drew together. "Is this true, Sarah?" he asked.

"Darren's a friendly guy, that's all!" said Sarah. "Now everyone's going to think I'm a freak like her too!"

"Nice one, Sis," said Ben, giving Sibby a high five. "By the way, Sarah, lots of my friends think Sibby's cool."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Yeah, as if all your friends aren't freaks like you."

"Freaks like Jamie, you mean?"

Sarah coloured all the way from her chin to the roots of her hair. Jamie was James Larson, son of Californian senator Blake Larson. Everyone knew that Sarah had a crush on Jamie. Sibby had to admit, Jamie was pretty good looking. And he was fun. And he wasn't smarmy like Darren Hertz. As far as Sarah's crushes went, he was a pretty good choice. Sibby felt a warm feeling grow inside her. Jamie thought she was cool! She cast a smug glance in Sarah's direction.

"Yes, because James Larson's opinion is all that matters," said Marie, rolling her eyes ceiling-ward. "Look, Ben, get whatever you want for dinner. And yes, you can have a glass of that white in the wine cooler. It tastes like tap water, but I'm sure you know that. Sibby and Sarah,  _we_ are going to have a little chat."

"But I'm  _hungry_ , Mom," whined Sibby, the same way she did when she was six. Marie gave her a look. Damn it. If it had been just her dad, it might have worked. William looked like he was about to intervene on his daughter's behalf, but thought better of it. She sighed. "Ben, don't forget the wedges, will you?"

* * *

William splashed water onto his face. Talking with Sibby was sometimes more exasperating than debating with the opposition or responding to their accusations and completely false allegations. Sibby was bright. That much had been clear from a very young age when, for her second grade science fair project, she'd constructed a home-made time bomb without any help from anyone. The problem was that she'd brought it to school and wanted to demonstrate how it worked. Needless to say, they changed schools soon after.

"She could have killed that boy," said Marie. "I mean, I get where she's coming from, the way he was with Sarah, and I probably would have done something similar myself, but Sibby could have killed him if Coach Ruiz hadn't stopped the fight. I know it." She sat on the edge of their bed, with her hair loose and wearing an old t-shirt of his and a pair of faded shorts. William didn't know how she could look sexier than she had at college. The lines on her face gave her gravitas that youth could not bestow, and age had only made her features sharper. Behind her, the skyline of New York glowed and the Hudson almost looked pretty as darkness veiled its filth. "What did we do wrong, Will? I mean, do you think she remembers Nessa? Do you think that's why she acts out? Sometimes latent memories can cause children to behave…" Violently, she wanted to say. Dangerously, probably.

"I don't think it is that," said Will slowly. "She seems perfectly happy." He paused. "Has she said anything to you?" His heart pounded. When they had brought Sibby home, they had promised to never tell her that she was adopted, or anything about the circumstances surrounding her birth and Nessa's death. It would have been too traumatic for her, and they didn't want her to feel as if she were any different from her other siblings.

"No, nothing," said Marie. "Like you said, she seems perfectly happy, but what if she's pretending?"

"I think Ben would have noticed something if she were," said William. Ben was their eldest child and only son. Only two years old when they brought Sibby home, the two had bonded at the hip, with Sibby trailing him everywhere as a toddler. As they'd grown, they'd become best friends, even though they could not be more different. Ben was a cheerful, calm, kind boy with a B+ average and a greater interest in sports than in anything else, whereas Sibby seemed to operate under the modes of either gleeful or angry and excelled at everything she did, except English.

So it was always incredibly puzzling as to why such an intelligent girl could do such  _stupid_ things such as get into fights in school over real or perceived threats and insults. Not that she ever lost.

That was his fault, he supposed. After the first couple of school fights, he'd hired a martial arts instructor for Sibby, thinking that it would give her some discipline and allow her to channel her restless energy into something a little more constructive. It just made her better at beating up people.

"Do you think she'd tell him?" asked Marie. William gave her a wry smile, and she had to laugh a little at her question. When did Sibby ever keep a secret? Or, at least, when did she ever keep one well? "You know, it's funny. If she'd lived in ancient Sparta, they'd have celebrated her. Sometimes I feel like she comes from a bygone age, you know?"

William bent down, kissed Marie on the lips, and climbed into bed. "Why don't you take her for a girl's day out tomorrow, if you're not too busy with your book? We're not going to get any more out of her today but, maybe, in a more relaxed environment, she might say more."

"Have you met our daughter? Her idea of a relaxed environment is the paintball range."

* * *

Sibby made faces to herself as she flicked through the clothes on the rack. Seriously, what was the obsession with pastel colours for girls? Nearby, Sarah squealed over a frilly blouse she'd just found and added it to the pile of clothes she wanted to try in the dressing room. "We've been at this for hours," complained Sibby. She looked at her watch. It had been forty five minutes. "I'm hungry."

"You're just this bottomless pit of hunger," scoffed Sarah.

"At least I don't write down everything I eat."

"Girls, play nice," said Marie.

"I can't be nice when I'm hangry," declared Sibby.

"Like you're  _ever_ nice," said Sarah.

"Speak for yourself," said Sibby.

Marie sighed. "Sibby, why don't you go to Barnes and Noble and pick out a couple of books? Sarah and I will text you when we're done here and then we can have lunch."

Finally, she was free. She stopped by a hotdog stand to buy herself a snack, and then wandered down the street towards the bookstore. She didn't notice an old man in a woollen cap and checkered scarf following her. At times, he pretended to be reading a newspaper, or buying a pretzel. Always, she was within his sight. She stopped at a pedestrian crossing the wait for the light to turn, still munching on her hotdog with extra pickle and mustard.

The old man stumbled into her. "Oh, excuse me," he said, as he reached out to hold onto her arm to try and keep his balance. His grip was incredibly, unnaturally strong. She dropped her hotdog and caught a glimpse of his eyes; clear and blue, as if all the mysteries of the universe were hidden in them. And then she was falling, and falling, and falling…

She pushed herself up and looked around her. "Mom?" she called. "Sarah?" Where was she? There was altogether too much green. Everywhere she looked, there were bushes and trees. Not manicured bushes and trees but wild and prickly ones, growing all over. In the distance was a line of snow-capped peaks. "Mom!" She pulled out her phone. No signal. That was just bullshit. A moment ago, she'd been in downtown New York. What had happened? She remembered an old man, those eyes, and then that feeling of falling… no, it wasn't falling. Maybe it was a quantum tunnel? But right there in the middle of the city? What had caused it? She wasn't a conspiracy theorist but she had to wonder if the Pentagon was behind this and she was just an unfortunate bystander. But, then, shouldn't there be more people here with her? Unless there were branches in the quantum tunnel. And what did the old man have to do with it? Somehow, she had a feeling he was linked. This was a phenomenon that science, and thus she, was not familiar with.

"Mom! Sarah!" Her voice echoed in the vast emptiness of the wild. Only a few bird calls answered. It was drizzling. She pulled the hood of her puffer jacket over her head and picked a direction. Sooner or later, she was bound to bump into a road, right?

The trees and rocks stretched for miles. Clear little brooks converged with one another, flowing towards a river. Mud caked her boots. The rain was only growing heavier, until the mountains disappeared behind a damp veil. Water ran down her nose. She was starting to get very worried. Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be no sign of civilisation at all. No road signs, no fence posts, no telephone lines, no nothing. Also her phone was still giving her the no signal message.

She kept on walking, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and not veering from the path that she had set herself. At least she wasn't going to die of thirst. Hunger was a very different matter. Her dad had once shown her and Ben how to grope for fish, but she doubted she was good enough at it to actually catch herself a meal. Her stomach grumbled. That hotdog felt as if it belonged to another lifetime. To take her mind off the gnawing emptiness in her stomach, she tried to run through the calculations in her head, but she had no figures to base them off of. She could be anywhere in the universe. Well, not anywhere. Judging by the flora and fauna – there were fir trees and nettles, and a starling had just flown away after having pulled a worm out of the mud – she was still somewhere on Earth, and most likely in the Northern Hemisphere. Her watch said it was 12.12pm. Clearly not in this timezone, because it looked closer to 5pm right now. She tried to think of what place on earth was five hours ahead of New York. Iceland? Greenland? It didn't look cold enough to be either of those places. Unless the quantum tunnel had also pulled her through time and not just space, and instead of the couple of minutes it had felt like, it was actually…

That did not bear thinking about.

"Ho there!" What was that? A horse and rider? The man on the horse was dressed strangely. He wore what looked like a fur-lined cloak. His tack looked… old fashioned. As he drew closer, she could see the pommel of a sword peeking out from beneath his cloak. Dread settled in her stomach. Time and space.

"Are you all right, miss?" he asked. "You look lost." His face was stern but kind. That didn't mean anything, however. Charm was a serial killer's best lure.

"Can you tell me the way to the nearest town, please?" asked Sibby.

"Nearest town? There's nothing in the way of settlements until we reach the last homely house," said the man. "That's where I'm headed."

"The last homely house? What the heck is that?" asked Sibby. Was the man crazy? Now that she'd had a good look at his longsword, it looked pretty authentic to her, if new and not worn and rusted like the ones in museums. Maybe he was just a cosplayer. She hoped he was an Icelandic cosplayer. His English, however, was disturbingly good, if old fashioned, like everything else about him.

Maybe this was Scotland? What about Ireland?

"Some call it Rivendell," said the man. "The elves call it Imladris."

" _Elves_?" That was it. He was crazy (and stupid) if he thought she was going to believe him.

"Yes, indeed, the elves," said the man, who had not caught onto the reason behind her incredulity. "Look, it's getting dark, and it's dangerous for anyone to be out here alone, especially a woman. You're welcome to share my fire."

Could she trust him? The crazy man didn't look very crazy, and if he were someone trying to lure her into a false sense of security, he was doing a very poor job of it by mentioning elves. At any rate, she didn't have much choice. It was getting darker and colder. She had nothing on her except a bunch of bills, her credit card, and her cell phone, none of which seemed very useful at the moment. The man was waiting for her answer.

She looked him up and down. On a horse and cloaked as he was, it was hard to judge how tall he was, but he seemed rather tall and well-built. In a one on one fight, she wasn't sure she could get the upper hand. But if he really wanted to hunt her down, he could easily overtake her with his horse if she ran. "Lead the way, Sir Galahad," she said. "I'll follow."

He looked at her strangely. "I am not this Sergaladh you speak of. My name is Boromir. I come from Gondor, in the east. And you are...?"

"People call me Sibby," she said. "My mother calls me Sybille when I'm in trouble, which seems to be all the time." Best not to say that she was the daughter of a senator of the United States. He might get ideas about ransom in his head. "Do you have any food? I'll pay you. I've only got American dollars, though, but I'm sure you can change them."

"I would not ask for payment," said Boromir, looking insulted.

"Okay, okay, I didn't mean any offence. I just didn't want to take advantage, you know?"

Luckily she remembered how to build a fire from her girl-scout days. Unluckily, she had no idea how to do it with damp wood. Between her and Boromir, however, they managed to find enough dry kindling in the middle of bushes and beneath trees and Boromir coaxed a small fire to life in the shelter of an outcrop of rock that almost formed a cave, but didn't. For dinner, he shared his dried meat and hardtack with her. It was disgusting, but she was so hungry she didn't care. Again, she tried to convince him to let her pay. Again, he wouldn't hear of payment. "Get some rest," he said. "I'll take first watch."

"What's out here that you need to keep watch?" she asked. In the middle of her sentence, she started to yawn.

"Do you truly not know?" he asked in surprise.

"I haven't seen any sign of bears or coyotes at all," she said. Her eyes were heavy, and her body was telling her that rest was a very good idea, even though one part of her brain was telling her that maybe she shouldn't just trust a stranger like that.

"I don't know what kai-yo-tees are, but I envy you if you feel bears are the only danger one could encounter in the wild," he said.

* * *

The girl was a very strange creature. Boromir had never encountered anyone or anything like her. For one, her clothing marked her as being a stranger to these lands. Secondly, she had to be the brashest, most confident young woman he had ever encountered. She didn't know where or what Gondor was, and she certainly had no idea who he was. Even so, it was rare for a woman to look him in the eye when she spoke to him, not that they had a great deal to talk about. His thoughts dwelt often on Faramir's dream of the eastern sky growing dark and of Isildur's Bane.

By the evening of the next day, they reached the Fords of Tharbad. In the days of old, the Men of the West had settled here and built towns and the great bridge that now stood in crumbling ruins across the river. The girl's jaw dropped open. "No, it can't be," she kept whispering to herself. "What… how…"

"We'll rest here tonight and ford the river tomorrow morning," he declared.

"Is this some kind of ancient Roman ruin?" she demanded. "But the arches don't match, and it looks far older." She placed her hand on the slippery wet rocks that formed the base of the bridge, all the while muttering something about her mother and a field day. "Say, is there another crossing, because  _this –_ " She spread her arms wide to indicate the river and its rushing, icy, muddy waters hurtling over submerged rocks and deep eddies "—doesn't look very safe."

"The next crossing is about one hundred miles downstream from here over treacherous terrain," he said. "And if we don't get to Rivendell before winter sets in, we could very well die out here."

"There's, like, seventy tons of water rushing through every second." The girl put her arms on her hips.

"It's the narrowest part for miles around."

"And that's why it's so dangerous! All those vast volumes of water are being squeezed into this small space. That force would knock an elephant –" He assumed she meant Oliphaunt. "—off its feet! They built a bridge here for a reason, you know, although it's useless to us now." She scowled at the broken bridge as if it was all its fault.

"We cross here tomorrow," Boromir repeated. "You may stay behind if you wish, but know that winter is coming."

She looked at him and burst into giggles.


End file.
